WCW Superbrawl VI Review

Public Enemy vs The Nasty Boys - Falls Count Anywhere Street Fight Depending on where you look and when you listen to the match, the match is either a falls count anywhere match or a street fight. Public Enemy were still fairly new in WCW. While they were making tables famous in the mainstream, the previous hardcore team in WCW, The Nasty Boys, wanted to show they were the most hardcore team in WCW.

As you can guess, there's not a single wrist lock in the match. There are plenty of chair shots, dented garbage cans, and broken tables. The running joke of the match is Dusty's use of the word of "plunder," when talking about the weapons. Schiavone calls Sags chair shot a home run. Johnny Grunge doesn't even bother to sell it.

Knobbs has Rocco Rock pinned near the merchandise table, but the ref is near the ring with the other two wrestlers. Sags and Grunge makes their way to their partners. Rocco sets Knobbs up on a table and climbs through the fans to the top of a set of bleachers. Rocco dives off of stands and falls through the sky.

Knobbs moves out of the way and Rocco smashes through the table. Knobbs pins the fallen PE member to pick up the win.

You wouldn't consider this a great or even a good match. But it was entertaining in some sense. The Nasty Boys doesn't get the recognition they deserve for bringing hardcore wrestling to the mainstream. While ECW gets credit, the Nasties have been putting people through tables on PPV since 1994.

Yet, people actually give credit to a little Philly indy promotion that was still widely unknown to people outside of Pennsylvania while Nasties were putting on these matches. The stage dive was also before it's time as far as mainstream spots goes. I would still recommend the Nasty Boys feud with Cactus Jack and a mixture of partners in 1994 over this though.Eight Minutes. 2.5 Stars.

Johnny B. Badd w/ Diamond Doll vs Diamond Dallas Page - TV Title Gimmick Match Not only is this for the TV title, but it's also for the managerial services of the Diamond Doll (Kimberly) and $6.6 million, which Kimberly won in a bingo. However, DDP took the money and has been spending it since.

Early on, Johnny hits a nice legdrop from the apron inside the ring. DDP catches Badd in a gutbuster, which hurts Badd's ribs for the rest of the match. For some reason, hurt ribs affects Badd's knee, causing him to fall during an Irish Whip. But they give up on the hurt knee to concentrate on the ribs. Hmm okay.

From then out, the match slows down a lot. Page spends most of the match talking to Kimberly, trying to get her to give him a 10. In case you're wondering, back when Kimberly was still with Page (During his heel time), she would have to hold up a 10 sign every time Page did something good. Finally, Kimberly does give him a sign, a 0.

Page is so shocked that he stumbles backwards and trips over Badd school boy style. That only gets a 2 though. Badd with a weak looking Sitdown Power bomb gets a two. Page goes for a tilt-a-whirl pancake (One of his main moves), but Badd reverses it into a Tombstone piledriver. That's enough to win the match, retain the title, win the cash, and keep Kimberly. After the match, Badd gives the giant check to Kimberly. Aww. What a dumbass.

This would pose to be Badd's final major win in WCW. A month later he would be in the WWF as Wildman Mark Mero. The match had a good feel to it early on, but as soon as Badd's ribs came into play, it slowed down incredibly. I was surprised to find out how long the match was because it felt a lot longer. Page's overselling the shock of the 0 didn't help matters either. Had they cut five minutes, this would of been a lot better.15 Minutes. Two Stars.

Lex Luger and Sting (c) vs Harlem Heat - WCW World Tag Team Champions Sting and Luger's reign as tag team champions was one of my favorite WCW story lines and makeshift tag teams. Sting was your Über babyface, while Luger was a heel who didn't like Hogan. However, they were still best friends.

However, Sting is starting to draw away from Luger because Luger keeps on cheating to win their matches. Sting even threatens to give up his title if Luger continues to cheat, since he didn't want to hold a title by cheating. This is the first of two tag-team title matches.

The winners of this match will have to defend the tag team titles against the Road Warriors later on. Booker and Sting starts it off, but Sting is upset once Luger doesn't show too much passion, so he tags Luger in. Luger misses a huge elbow (Great hangtime for someone his size).

Luger plays the rare heel in peril to Harlem Heat. Finally, Luger gets the hot tag to Sting, but the ref was distracted and didn't see it. That makes no difference to Sting as he dominates Stevie Ray.

Booker T holds down the ropes sending Sting out of the ring. While Booker and Sting battles at ringside, Stevie Ray gets Luger up in a backbreaker position. The Road Warriors comes out and Animal hits Stevie Ray with a sheet of lead (Think license plate. )

The bodily harmed caused by the thin piece of metal to the ribs is enough for Luger to reverse and get in a pinning position and win the match for his team. After the match, Mean Gene talks to the champs. Sting is happy that he could finally count on Luger. Gene tries to bring up the interference, but Sting is too excited to hear what really happened.

WCW had hands down a better tag division than the WWF had. Up until the NWO came around, WCW had main event, mid-card, and lowcard tag teams. With this being a battle between two of the bigger teams, the fans cared which really shows what's lacking today. The match wasn't as good as it should of been, but I was still entertained with the storyline going on at the same time. Switch out Stevie Ray and you could of had a memorable match.12 Minutes. 2-3/4 Stars.

Konnan (c) vs The One Man Gang - U.S. Championship Match Konnan had only been in WCW for a month before winning the US championship on The Main Event (Which ironically didn't have too many main event level matches). This is the rematch that no one wanted to see.

Konnan has a good strategy going into the match. He uses quick moves and never stays in one place. But that doesn't last long as The Gang uses his size and power to take control. The crowd is absolutely dead for the match with the exception of a few boring chants.

The match is so boring that people are too bored to chant boring loud. Konnan tries to hit a dropkick, but comes up short...real short. Even the commentators struggle to try and make sense out of it. Gang hits the 747 (Splash), but picks up Konnan during the pin to break it up. That's Gang's downfall as Konnan recovers and hits a top rope forward fall to pick up the win.

Just like Konnan's reign as US champion, this match sucked. Both the WWF and WCW hired '80s badasses in King Kong Bundy (WWF) and The One Man Gang (WCW). The difference between the companies is that Bundy was just used to put people over. WCW gave Gang the US title. Eight Minutes. 1/2 Star.

Brian Pillman vs Kevin Sullivan - 'I Respect You' Strap Match While the Four Horsemen (Pillman and company) and The Dungeon of Doom (Sullivan and his misfits) were join together to end Hulkamania, the two started their own war. The purpose of this strap match is to force the other man to say "I Respect You." With Sullivan already in the ring, Pillman runs to the ring and attack Sullivan. The straps aren't even on yet. After about 60 seconds of fighting, Pillman grabs the ref to get the microphone. "I Respect You...Booker Man."

Well, my copy doesn't have that since it's a rip of the home video and it was edited out, but that's what he said. At the time, Sullivan was the booker and this was a storyline directed to the smarks. Of course in the mid '90s, smarks made up a very small amount of your audience. So basically, they made an angle that most of their fans wouldn't understand.

Since only Pillman and Sullivan knew of the angle, no one else knew what was going on. While Pillman leaves, eventually Arn Anderson comes down. Not sure what to do, Anderson takes Pillman's place. The bell rings and we get a normal strap match.

Minutes after it began, Ric Flair runs to the ring to break up the fight. He wants them all on the same page so they can end Hulk Hogan. And with that, Sullivan and Anderson shakes hands and it's over.

I would of loved to have gotten people's reactions of the match right after it happened. WCW once again showed that they had no idea who their audience was. This wasn't ECW, smarks wasn't your audience. So to pull this angle was just dumb and made little sense.

The "Real" strap match between Anderson and Sullivan was stopped too soon to be anything good. In the end, you're left with two incomplete matches, a lot of confused fans and yet one of the more memorable moments in WCW history.Seven Minutes. Three Stars (for being memorable).

Sting and Lex Luger (c) vs The Road Warriors - WCW Tag Team Titles Match This feud started up in a previous match where Luger cheated to win. This caused an all ready ill-tempered Roadies to want to get their hands on Luger again. That explains why Animal cost Harlem Heat the tag team championships earlier on in the night.

There's a long wait from introductions to actual in-ring action. Luger is too scared to be at ringside with the Road Warriors. Bobby Heenan suggests it might be because of the spikes on the Roadies shoulder pads since they could poke an eye out with them.

Although they don't make any mention of it, fellow commentator Dusty Rhodes knows first hand what that's like seeing how the Roadies did that to him when they turned heel on him in the '80s. We finally get to the match with Sting and Hawk in the ring. Hawk botches his hangman style neckbreaker.

Hawk chases Sting around the ring, and Luger does something brilliant. As Hawk is coming around the corner of the champions, Luger steps in the ring to avoid him. It's a small thing, but it really adds to the storyline of the match. The partners are tagged in, but Luger remains hesitant about letting go of the ropes to face Animal.

Once again, Luger is showing his intelligence when it comes to this match. Luger gets in a few kicks, but gets an Animal powerslam for the two. The Roadies doesn't even bother tagging in their corner and Hawk comes back in. Luger is able to tag Sting in and we get more of Sting vs Hawk.

Luger continues to only tag in when a member of the Road Warriors is hurt. Finally, chaos breaks out with Animal and Luger fighting to the entrance while Hawk and Sting fights at the guard railing. The ref calls for the bell and we get a double countout. After the match, Hawk leaves Sting to attack Luger some more. Even when Sting gets to the other three men, the Road Warriors seem content on only attacking Luger.

The stalling before the match lasted far too long. In that time just stalling, they could of easily had another short match. As for the match, the psychology was there. Everyone played their parts well. However, it just wasn't as good as it could of been. Book this in 1991 and you would of seen a MOTYC. For 1996, it's hardly a memorable match. The match is available on the Legion of Doom DVD though.14 Minutes. Three Stars.

Randy Savage (c) w/ Elizabeth vs Ric Flair w/ Woman - WCW World Title Steel Cage Match First of all, why isn't this the main event? Both of the final matches are steel cage matches. The only difference is that this is for the World title. Meh, whatever. This feud goes back to their time in the WWF, but it re-ignited thanks to Woman (Nancy Benoit) when she turned her back on Savage and Hogan to join up with Flair.

Savage jumps Flair to start the match. While the ref is busy locking up the door, Savage has Flair pinned for at least four seconds. Flair punches out the ref for no reason. Savage takes a nasty hit against the cage that makes him look dead. Randy comes back and locks in the Figure Four Leglock onto Ric. Ric grabs the ropes, but since this is No DQ, it doesn't matter. For whatever reason, the ref forces Flair to let go of the ropes by kicking his arms. A few minutes later, Flair locks in the Figurefour on Savage.

Savage gets to the ropes and the ref forces Flair to let go of the hold by raking his eyes. Can you say bias ref? Flair tries to climb up the cage, but Savage pulls his tights. The Turner Home Release of the event has different angles completely which makes it hard to know what is going on. Savage continues to pull Flair's tights down over and over.

At one point, the two hit the one side of the cage so much that it looks like it may collapse. Instead, the door breaks open. Woman tries to throw powder into the eyes of Savage, but he ducks out of the way. With the door open, Elizabeth gives Flair her shoe. Savage goes for the small package, but gets a two count. The camera angle misses the shot of Flair hitting Savage with the shoe. Flair covers Savage and becomes the 13 time World Champion.

Whenever you have a MOTYC, it's hard to live up to the previous expectations. This isn't as good as their WM Eight match, but it is easily one of Savage's best WCW matches. Screwy ref decisions aside, both men put on a hell of a match. The heel turn at the end was unexpected, but it never really went anywhere. Within a few months the NOW would be created and thus it was meaningless. And early MOTYC for WCW in '96.20 Minutes. Four Stars.

The Giant w/ Jimmy Hart and Kevin Sullivan vs Hulk Hogan Yet another steel cage match. Hogan is coming into the match with only one good eye. The other eye I believe was hurt from when Woman attacked him during her heel turn. As Hogan comes down, you can hear some "Hogan Sucks" chants. That really shows you how badly Hogan needed a change. The Giant was still the "Son" of Andre the Giant.

Unlike the previous match, you can only win by escape from the cage. Hogan tries to bodyslam The Giant early on in the match, but he can't support the weight and The Giant falls on top of Hogan, a la Wrestlemania Three. There's one problem with that, Andre was over 500 pounds when Hogan had difficulty slamming him. The Giant, at this time, weighed around 350. That really makes Hogan look weak.

Giant controls most of the match, just like his "Poppa" did nine years earlier. The Giant hits one of his weakest chokeslams ever, but Hogan no sells it. Hogan rams Giant's head against the cage several times. Big Boot and a Leg Drop. Another Leg Drop. A third legdrop for good measure. Hogan starts to climb the cage, as The Giant wakes up and climbs on the top rope with Hogan. The two fights for a few moments until Hogan chops The Giant off and sending him crashing to the mat. Hogan is able to escape the cage and win the match.

After the match, Sullivan hits Hogan with a chair that Hogan no-sells. Hogan takes the chair and chases Sullivan into the cage. But wait, The Giant is on his feet again. Hogan with his chair looks to take out the two when the Dungeon of Doom climbs in the cage. Members include Meng (Haku), The Barbarian (The Barbarian ), Shark (Earthquake), The Zodiac (Brutus Beefcake), and The One Man Gang (Akeem).

What does Hogan do? He beats them all up of course. That right there shows you how pathetic the DofD was. Even with seven men on one, they couldn't take out Hogan. The Giant heads to the back as the newest member of the DofD, The Loch Ness Monster comes out.

Sullivan and the rest of the Doom stops Nessie from getting in the ring, teasing a dramatic future match between he and Hogan which never really materialized. Hogan ends the PPV standing alone in the ring celebrating.

The Big Show was still very green at this point. But to his credit, he did well enough. The problem with the match is that they were trying far too hard to copy the old Andre/Hogan WM Three match. Show may of been more athletic than Andre was in '87, but there was no way that this could be as good. However, compared to recent steel cage matches, this is decent enough. They did choose the wrong match to main event the show though.15 Minutes. Two Stars.

Overall If you've never seen WCW in 1996, this is on par for how shows went before the NWO came along. You had a lot of cheesiness (Often time with Hogan and the DofD), matches that weren't as good as they should have (LOD vs Sting/Luger), a whole slew of average, and then one or two above average good matches (Flair vs Savage).

The show could of really benefited from showcasing some of their younger/athletic in a match. You had such talented wrestlers as Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Steven Regal, Dean Malenko, Bobby Eaton and even Alex Wright. Adding one of those matches could of helped this show be much more rounded and appealed to more people. They would get wise and add the Cruiserweight Championship the following month.

Even though this wasn't the best of shows, it is a huge step up from the previous year's Superbrawl where they literally had nothing of value. This show is just very average with one exceptional match.